


Innocence and Experience

by Delphi



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Drama, Insecurity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-01
Updated: 2009-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:09:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three interludes in a relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Innocence and Experience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rikibeth](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Rikibeth).



**1976**

He keeps his hands to himself, jamming them deep into his pockets. Doesn't want to be sacked, for one thing, or get packed off to Azkaban. But at the heart of it, the boy's just too clean to ruin.

Maybe not on the outside. Skin-deep, Snape's as manky as the rest of them—all greasy skin and nervous sweat, sneaking around between classes looking for an empty bathroom to steal a wank in.

Inside, though, he's like a brand-new pocket watch. Fiddly gears and gleaming gold. Delicate and precise and not for clumsy hands.

Argus looks but doesn't touch.

 

**1981**

Snape comes back different. Tired. Tarnished. Being a professor's nothing to sneeze at, but you wouldn't know it to look at him.

They both end up at the Hog's Head one night just before Christmas. The boy gets soused—sloppy and sorry—and Argus downs a cup of courage and follows him in back and offers to suck his cock. Snape doesn't say no.

It's always done in the dark, after. In Argus's office, in an empty classroom, in the library. Always after evening patrol. No lights on. No beds.

Sometimes Argus is sure he's only dreamed it.

 

**1986**

He watches him sleep. It's been a week of dour moods, more worrisome than the usual snarls and sniping—though no one else ever notices the difference.

Sometimes he thinks if he stares hard enough, he'll glimpse the bad dreams playing out behind the boy's eyes—and sometimes he wishes he could just open up his head and sweep out the cobwebs, all the dark thoughts and dingy memories and bitter disappointments. Make it all go away. Fix him up good as new.

But. He silently wonders, desperately, guiltily: what would someone like Severus want with him then?


End file.
